Yes, but like SCSI, Apple was its only mainstream delivery vehicle. Back in the 80's and 90's, SCSI interfaces were reserved for servers, ultra high end workstations, and Apple computers. They always push the bleeding edge, which is possibly the only thing I respect about Apple.Reply

This has nothing to do with "pushing the bleeding edge". This has to do with giving Apple an "excuse" to remove USB ports from their iToys, thus locking out 3rd party accessory manufacturers (Thunderbolt is far too expensive to be competitive, unless you have a special deal like Apple has with Intel).

The Mac hasn't been Apple's main focus for a long time; it's all about iOS and its ecosystem, now.Reply

doesn't the article specifically say that thunderbolt is free to license.Isn't Promise Pegasus a 3rd part manufacturer. Do you have any source claiming that Promise has a special deal with Apple.Sony has thunderbolt ports in it's laptop as well.Reply

Besides that you give away your bias of anything from Apple, TB isn't an Apple technology. It's an Intel one. What I find ironic is the USB versus TB arguments. First, it's a false choice. Even Apple has offered both FireWire and USB ports for years on their machines. It's only recently that FireWire has started to be removed from models. There's no current indication that USB will be dropped by Apple. Second, in specific regards to USB 3.0 I don't see the argument versus TB device availability. Neither have much market penetration yet, so only time will tell how each of them will do - and both could do fine or both could fail.Reply

"Ironically isolated from the world around them?" How about wifi and iCloud? With limited storage capacity, there's no need for anything more. iOS devices are simply thin clients - and they work wonderfully as such.Reply

Yes, but in this instance, it's not just a dumb wire; there is an IC at each end of the cable. So theoretically, if Intel comes up with an upgraded Light Peak spec, there may well be cables that are capable of faster speeds. I also imagine longer cables become more difficult, and may in fact require fiber optic transceivers built into the cable. This cable also likely costs significantly more to manufacture than a crimped cable, since there's a tiny IC and micro soldering that needs to be done on each cable.

But yes, in one sense you are right that in a digital bus, higher quality cables do not provide better performance (though I have run into very low-quality HDMI cables that work fine at 720p but refuse to carry a 1080p signal.)Reply

At the moment, i’m not sure the Thunderbolt host controller has any real legs on the cable. That host controller is already pumping data to each port at the same speeds as the DMI link between the CPU and PCH. Everything in the chain that is connected to it needs to get faster for Thunderbolt to get faster, i.e. PCIe 3.0, DMI 3.0, DP 1.2.

Also, I’m pretty sure it’s not those little ICs that are making Apple’s Thunderbolt cables cost $49. Like many retailers, Apple knows that cables and accessories (and RAM upgrades) are a great place to stretch profit margins. A quick search of the Apple store for cables and adapters will turn up dozens of genuine Apple offerings ranging in price from $19 on up to $99. So, taken in context, the Thunderbolt cable is actually a mid-priced cable from Apple, not an expensive one. It also means that cheap unbranded alternatives could quite realistically be sold for around $15, ICs and all.

Yeah, the SCSI cables were $75+ easily, you needed terminators, and do you remember the fine SCSI1/2/3 connector differences so you needed adapters or cables with different ends depending on the devices. I still have probably what WAS $500 of cables in my closed.

Inflation adjusted, these $50 cables are about the equivalent of $15 cables back in those days, so frankly they don't sound too bad, especially considering the fact that it's industry leading performance right now.

As for comparing to Monster cables, these Thunderbolt cables have controllers built into them and presumably do have to meet tighter tolerances than USB, particularly as they carry 2 x 10Gbps data streams. But you're right that Monster cables are a rip off.Reply

It reminds me of FB-DIMMs, an expensive solution that uses additional energy, and the components cost more than devices it replaces. Controllers in the cables AND on the motherboard and peripherals? Maybe the optical solution will make more sense. Reply

I thought the initial copper cables didn't need any controllers in them? The impression I got from earlier articles was that Intel said their Thunderbolt implementation could scale to optical in future for greater speeds by releasing optical cables with a copper to optical controller in each end of the cable once controller costs had come down from mass production.Reply

By reneging on the light in "Light Peak", Intel effectively killed it. Who knows why they're playing dumb in pretending that they're going to get the industry to adopt Thunderbolt and then turn around and adopt an optical solution right afterward. Just idiotic.Reply

Not if apple remains the sole platform including it. Niche markets can be expensive. Until Thunderbolt is an option in Windows systems the numbers just won't be there for the consumer market. The devices will continue to be expensive for most non-professional Apple users as well, making this a very expensive product category.

Consider the premium USB 3.0 is still carrying almost a year after it started being included in shipping systems and widely available as an upgrade via PCI-e board. This past week was the first time I saw a USB 3.0 flash drive priced low enough to be worthwhile. Frys had a 16 GB Corsair unit for $20 after rebate. Note that this unit is almost 50% larger than the USB 2.0 version and so may not be acceptable to all.

Next year, as motherboard chip sets with native USB 3.0 support enter the mainstream the transition should pick up steam. It's taken more than three years since the first controllers became widely available. So try toimagine the glacial growth rate for Thunderbolt outside professional applications if it doesn't get a decent footprint beyond the Mac. Reply

AOC recently announce a Monitor that can be powered by 2 USB, roughly 9W. Which means it it really did worked out. A Thunderblot version could be possible, having an external monitor with just 1 cable!!!.Reply

OK, I recognize that most A/V equipment isn’t refreshed as often as PCs are, but the industry started the switch to digital display interfaces 12 years ago. If you really can’t part with your equipment that predates DVI, you can pick up an Apple mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter for $29, or a generic one for $5. It’ll fit in your pocket, and yes it will work with the Thunderbolt equipped Macs. And hey, now that you’ve got an analog signal, it’s no problem to use a passive adapter to convert to s-video or composite video, and then you can attach it right to your RF modulator and drive any TV made since 1941. Complete backwards compatibility for under $15 that will fit in your pocket (although you’ll probably need cargo pants for the RF modulator.)

If you can confine yourself to connecting to displays manufactured in the last 10 years or so, you can get an Apple DisplayPort to DVI adapter for $29, or a generic one for $5. It’ll fit in your pocket, and yes it will work with the Thunderbolt equipped Macs. Combine that with a DVI to HDMI cable for an additional $2, and now you can connect to any display with a digital interface except those requiring dual-link DVI. If you want audio as well as video over HDMI, you can get a mini DP to HDMI adapter such as the super slick Griffin GC17096 with Audio and DVI for $27, or go generic for far less.

The only cumbersome and expensive conversion on the newer Macs is when you absolutely have to go the dual-link DVI route. This requires an active adapter that has to regenerate the video signal. The apple version will run you $99 (see, those TB cables aren’t so expensive after all). However, Thunderbolt may actually allow for cheaper and more elegant solutions due to sufficient power being available on the port. Then again, dual-link DVI only displays are cumbersome and expensive in and of themselves, so it shouldn’t matter too much to those who actually own one.

The whole point of Thunderbolt is that it’s NOT yet another connection, it’s a radical extension of the capabilities of one you already have—the video out port. The only digital display interfaces that are even remotely as versatile, capable or compact as mini DP are mini/micro HDMI, but their consumer electronics heritage presents some drawbacks for PC applications. Not to mention that it is the packetized nature of the DisplayPort protocol itself that allows it to be combined with PCIe on a single link to create Thunderbolt. VGA ports are literally 8 times the size of mini DP ports and DVI are larger still. By forcing those who need to connect to 10 year old equipment to carry a $5 adapter in their pockets when they might need to do so, manufacturers are able to give everyone an additional 15 minutes of power when running on battery.Reply

Rest assured that USB 3.0 does NOT in any way or form do the same as Thunderbolt.

The protocols are very different, as in, USB 3.0 nearly doesn't support any and Thunderbolt being an extension of a 4 x PCI-Express slot does support heaps of features, like Target Disk Mode, S.M.A.R.T.-status, Native Command Queuing, daisy-chaining (with very low latency) making it ideal for many professional applications (Audio/Visual devices), bi-directional bandwidth, DisplayPort, 10 Watt of power and native software driver support.

Just to name a few.

External SATA doesn't do the same either.

Thunderbolt is a multi-purpose connector, not limited to only storage or transfer of files.

If you for a minute think that USB or E-SATA does the same as Thunderbolt, then you need to educate yourself.

It has the potential to replace all other external connectors. One cable to rule them all, instead of legacy cables that clutter up the backside of your computer and collect dust.Reply

Not really. Light Peak is essentially protocol agnostic. It tunnels PCI-E. The PCI-E-to-whatever bridge is built into the cable and/or dongle. In other words, a USB 3.0 adapter/hub that plugs into a Light Peak port is possible and even likely.While Intel may control the Light Peak controller, which will no doubt be integrated into motherboard chipsets, I don't think that will give them a monopoly on the bridge chips that make LP actually useful.Reply

It's not hard to foresee another Firewire or mini-DP in the making, or a Beta if you prefer going old-school.

Coupling Light Peak technology with mini-DP was a mistake. The technology is new, unproven and offers precious few usage scenarios with non-existent device support. Piggy-backing it on mini-DP, which suffer from pretty much exactly the same issues, won't help adoption rates.

Choosing USB over mini-DP as the 'legacy' interface would have been a much better choice.Reply

Except that the USB connector is only allowed to be used as an USB connector.

DisplayPort is also vastly superior to any other display cable standard, so I cannot see the problem in that regard. Mini-Display is already shipping in millions and millions of computers, as well as Mini-DisplayPort. The same can be said by Thunderbolt, even though it is only Apple who have fully embraced the technology.

As a professional in the audio/visual segment I can hardly see the problem with it being a repeat of FireWire, because my market usually adopts the better technology despite of a small price increase. Of course, it helps that we only use Apple computers to begin with and have already ditched all the back-alley, legacy connectors.Reply

I didn't say media professionals only use Apple computers, I said my company only use them.

As for now it only makes sense to discuss Thunderbolt and Apple computers as Apple are the only ones who has it currently.

But you just have to look at the companies that are releasing Thunderbolt enabled devices to understand that this connector is really something professionals are going to use. Next year the market will open up when PC vendors finally, if they so choose, to embrace the technology.Reply

Had LP been piggybacked upon USB instead it would have allowed for both back- and forwards-compatibility with a huge market of devices and could have slowly permeated said market until it had become a de-facto standard.

The choice of using mini-DP may well have condemned it to being yet another Firewire.Reply

The differences between DP 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a are at best a trade-off, with the latter being the better choice for consumers - even disregarding the huge difference in market penetration.

Computers currently shipping with mini-DP - Apple Macs and those equipped with discrete AMD 5- and 6-series graphics cards.

Unfortunately that's not the main issue, which is the distinct lack of /displays/ using the standard.

Displays shipping with mini-DP - Apple Cinema displays. The end. A few other high-end professional displays ship with full-sized DP but you can't argue it's got any significant market penetration.

Then there's HDMI, which is pretty much ubiquitous in the consumer electronics world, seeing rapid adoption for computer displays and is also used in modern projectors.

Anyway, that's pretty much an aside - the real gist of it is what I already mentioned regarding USB/LP being the vastly superior choice.

As for USB connectors only being allowed to be USB connector, that's not a physical limitation - it's a matter of licensing and what they choose to name the standard. A theoretical USB/LP standard could just as well have been named 'USB 4.0' or whatever.Reply

Not sure what your point is here. Is it just about the connector type? USB and Thunderbolt are different technologies. TB needed a display standard. DP was chosen because 1) Apple participated in its creation and 2) it isn't saddled with the restrictions and costs that HDMI licensing does.Reply

Mini DisplayPort IS DisplayPort, just using a smaller connector. The size of the connector is irrelevant to the interoperability of the devices, you simply connect them using an appropriate cable.

A quick search of Newegg shows displays available from Asus, BenQ, Compaq, Dell, HP, Lenovo, NEC, and Samsung all with DisplayPort connectors.

ATI/AMD has been shipping cards with DisplayPort connections since early 2008, and DP is native to the GPUs used for every 5 and 6 series device. Intel began including DisplayPort capability with GMA 4500 in 2008 and currently ships it to you in every CPU with integrated HD graphics. NVIDIA is the only major player who seems to be lagging on DP adoption, but there are still plenty of Fermi based cards on the market rocking DisplayPort.

HDMI was developed for consumer electronics, i.e. televisions and home theaters. DisplayPort was developed for PCs. The lineage is distinct and continues to this day as the two evolve. DP is packet based so that multiple displays can be daisy chained off of one port, which is not a common usage model for TVs. Newer HDMI specs include such home theater relevant features as support for 3D formats, 100 Mbps Ethernet and an audio return path—something that makes no goddamned sense in the PC context. DP originally supported high-resolution displays but not audio, whereas HDMI included audio from the outset but could only drive a 1920x1080 display because that’s all that HDTV required. DP 1.2 has an AUX channel that can be used to provide a USB 2.0 connection to the display over the same cable as video and audio, as well as offering more than twice the total bandwidth of HDMI 1.4.

USB is a shared serial bus based on a tiered-star topology. It’s great for connecting lots of relatively slow devices that don’t require much bus power or tight timing. When you try to use it for devices that require lots of bandwidth, like high speed external storage, things go downhill fast. Even with a single device connected to a USB host controller, you’re lucky to get throughput equal to 60% of the oft touted “480 Mbps” or “5 Gbps” due to insanely high protocol overhead. Although it’s finally moved beyond half-duplex and added better support for bulk data transfers, the cluster that is USB 3.0 tops out at around 385 MBps in best case scenarios. To create backwards compatibility with 2.0, they merely created Siamese Frankenconnectors, doubling the dimensions of the B connectors in the process, and added more conductors to the cable. How would bastardizing this poor port any further be a good idea? The differences between Thunderbolt and USB in architecture, implementation, and intended use are vast. How would the average user make this distinction if they were somehow cobbled onto the same port?Reply

it doesn't have such potential, because it is an active cable that costs 50$ per cable.Daisychaining doesn't help reduce the amount of CABLES you need, you still need one cable per device. It just reduces the amount of ports you need.

So I will stick with my 5 cables for 2$ each instead of 5 cables for 50$ each.

Now, if they made a thunderbold cable that is passive and cheap as hell, and integrated the controller into southbridge, then it will have the potential to replace all other cables.

Not having royalties and being an extension of PCIe are very powerful features as you said yourself.Reply

I though the unofficial Apple slogan was "It just works", but after reading the description for using an Imac as secondary display, that slogan seems like a joke. You have to boot up the Imac, own a recent keyboard and press a slightly odd key combination, that does not fit my impression of something that "just works".You use the Imac as a screen and Displayport is part of the cable, why could they not just have a on/off switch for the screen and one for the complete Imac, the screen switch can only control the screen and the Imac switch starts screen and computer, if the Imac is on, the screen switch is deactivated, not exactly advanced science.

Reading the review I also got the impression that Apple have given up on security, is there no password protection or something similar in "Target disc mode"? Can you just buy a Thunderbolt cable for a new Macbook pro and start stealing data from other Thunderbolt equipped Apple computers, just by connecting the cable and holding down t when the "victim" is started?Reply

Also, how’s Target Disk Mode any different than an USB key? If anything, the latter is easier to deal with, since you can just plug it into a running machine and off you go. Target Disk Mode might annoy you with stupid things like a Login and whatnot. Reply

Physical access is physical access. Just set up a EFI/BIOS password if you want false security. If your concerned about your noisy friend with another mac and firewire/thunderbolt-cable. Or whatever. If you like to protect your data, then encryption is not really enough either, but it helps. It does protect against someone stealing your shut down computer. If you have it on, they encryption key is in memory however. When you have physical access it doesn't really matter what the firmware tries to do, passwords and lojack can all be circumvented, and of course you could just remove the drive from the computer when it's not encrypted any way. Computers don't have protection from and are never protect from physical access. You need physical security for that.Reply

It is one thing if the thief steals the HDD/computer, learns a password or hacks the computer using some piece of software, as this often takes time, requires a lucky break or leaves obvious traces.Another thing is if someone can just hook up a cable turn the computer on and press T to access everything.Reply

You mean like booting from a CD or USB flash drive and copying files to a very small, hideable storage container?

Perfectly possible, and in fact I find myself doing this frequently (though copying the data in the other direction typically) when disinfecting PCs. I do this multiple times per week, removing data stealing trojans and rootkits.

Compare with Thunderbolt, where you will "sneak in with only a laptop and a cable and reboot and press T, and ZOMG yor datas are hax0red! Ha HA ha stupid Apple!!!111oneonewonwon"

As you can password protect (which can be bypassed with physical access any way) the firmware it doesn't matter if it is Firewire/Thunderbolt-target or USB-stick/HDD that access and or copies the files or simply a CD that changes your password so you can just log in an access everything without any effort at all. If you don't have limits on the firmware/bios any way you can just set up whatever, and access anything without any effort, less so then using slow target disk mode, even through network boot is possible which might be on in a corporate/university environment any way.

Just disable the good damn features you don't like, it don't make your computer safe but I'm sure it will quit you whining for nothing.

You will just access everything by running the system rescue tools on the install CD for OS X any how. Windows computers are essentially unprotected any way. So I really don't see how it's any worse then plugging in a USB stick to access everything or change the password (SAM) to blank/whateveryoulike. Screaming about a ten year old feature is just dumb. Just set up a firmware password and it stops people from simply booting a CD, USB-drive, HDD-drive, using target disk mode and network boot any way. It's simply not more vulnerable then PCs any way. It's quite easy to restore the firmware-password thus bypassing it on say an iMac any way, I could easily do it on older macs without taking the entire computer apart. And on a PC of course resetting CMOS password is often troubleless and manufacturers often has master passwords you get by calling the support any way. Later macs has got better protection from resetting the firmware password though. So just set the damn password.Reply

They are not driving the screen with a separate control-board. That's why target display is so awkward. You can expect third party stuff (and older macs) will work when Atlona has designed and released an Thunderbolt-compatible adapter/switch/converter/scaler though. It a integrated solution not a screen and a computer separate. The screen is when used normally connected directly to the ATi/AMD 6000M GPU. That's why you can't adjust the screen in Bootcamp/Windows without their software tool too.Reply

That makes sense, not much you can do to separate the two things if the screen is "merged" with the computer. I expected the computer part and screen part was seperate and the display input could be used in the same way as with most multiple input screens.If that was the case, a simple power circuit could control the screen and computer separately.Reply

Since.. uh, Snow Leopard, Apple changed file and drive sizes to display decimal bytes as used by the manufacturers, which is the same as the 10TB array.However every other thing ever reports in binary bytes, such as windows describing "gigabytes" even though it means gibibytes in reality.

Ugh, anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that maybe you did infact fill the array. That said, the thing shouldn't have fucked up..Reply

If I had way too much money, my usage model for Target Display Mode would be to use the iMac as a Virtual Machine host/server, connected to either a second iMac or a MacBook Pro as a dual-screen workstation.

With the minimum 27" iMac, you're basically buying a 27" Cinema Display plus a $700 Mac mini-on-steroids. If you want a second Apple display for your iMac or MacBook Pro, and want a Mac Mini to use as a server, that is an excellent value to instead just get a second iMac. (That value may drop depending on the next Mac Mini update, of course.)Reply

The lanes that come off the processor/NB are usually used for dGPU. On the new MacBook Pros, Apple borrowed four of them for the Thunderbolt controller. Apparently on the new iMacs, however, they decided to give all 16 lanes from the CPU to the graphics card and pulled four from the PCH instead.Reply

hmm, I think I'm missing something here. Are you saying that the new MBPs have 12 lanes to the dGPU because 4 have been borrowed (on demand?) by the TB controller? or does the PCH has its PCI lanes? if so, how many? Thanks for the reply.Reply

"At the end of a Thunderbolt chain you can insert a miniDP display, currently the only option is the 27-inch LED Cinema Display but in theory other panels that accept a miniDP input could work as well."

Any DisplayPort enabled display will work, and there's plenty of those. You just need to use an asymmetrical cable. Just like you don't need a display with a mini/micro HDMI port to use the mini/micro HDMI out on the devices that have those. Or a PC with mini/micro USB ports.Reply

“I'm not entirely convinced that we're limited by Thunderbolt here either - it could very well be the Pegasus' internal controller that's limiting performance.”

I’m pretty sure what you’ve gone and done here is bumped into the ceiling imposed by the CPUs in those Macs only supporting a PCIe maximum TLP payload size of 128 bytes. You achieved a little better than 80% of the total 10 Gbps bandwidth available on one Thunderbolt channel in actual data throughput, which is surprisingly good. Even though that bandwidth is exclusive of PCIe’s normal 8b/10b encoding overhead, there’s no getting around the additional overhead inherent to any packetized protocol. A Thunderbolt controller paired with a northbridge that supports 4096 byte payload sizes could theoretically achieve around 99% of the full 10 Gbps.

You’ve also shown that one device using a single Thunderbolt channel can use > 50% of the bandwidth of the 4 PCIe 2.0 lanes connected to the Thunderbolt controller. Thus if you connected one 4-drive SF-2281 Pegasus R6 RAID-0 to each of the Thunderbolt ports on the 2011 iMac, you still shouldn’t expect more than 12,833 Mbps combined throughput.

The Target Disk Mode results are disappointing, although you’re always limited to the speed of the slowest drive that you’re transferring to/from. You didn’t mention what the iMac was packing, but if it’s still just the 1 TB 7200 RPM Seagate that was in the model you reviewed earlier, that would be the limiting factor. Did you check to see what you could pull using FireWire Target Mode between the two?

“simply displaying an image at 60Hz on the 27-inch Cinema Display requires over 6.75Gbps of bandwidth (because of 8b/10b encoding)”

I’m guessing that the 8b/10b encoding overhead is once again not present in the 10 Gbps per channel Thunderbolt bandwidth figure, just as for PCIe packets. Otherwise Thunderbolt would not be able to fully support the DisplayPort 1.1a spec which calls for 10.8 Gbps when including the 8b/10b padding.

“Apple claims that one of the channels is used for DisplayPort while the other is used for PCIe.”

This still flummoxes me. Does that mean that if you daisy chained 2 4-drive SF-2281 Pegasus R6’s to the Thunderbolt port on the MacBook Pro that you would achieve no better than 8021Mbps combined? That neither device could use the bandwidth of the second Thunderbolt channel even with no DisplayPort device present? Also, although Thunderbolt ports only support DisplayPort 1.1a resolutions, might they still support DP 1.2 features such as MST and daisy chainable displays? Or is the only way to connect multiple displays to one Thunderbolt port by using a DP 1.1a multi-display hub and thereby limiting the resolution of at least one of them to less than 2560x1440?Reply

So Apple will fix all the nagging issues with Thunderbolt connectivity when... they transition to ARM. Begone evil PC people, I'm sure Apple hates it thoroughly that iMacs and MBP can be "perverted" to x86's domain of Windows.

So when MacOS basically is superseded by iOS for their "non-handheld mobile devices" and they finally eliminate iMac and MBP since "people who didn't transition to our new taint-ARM/Apple specific processor" line of devices are obviously just lame, as proven by the poor saps holding on to their PowerPC macs. Yea it's coming full circle.

I'm actually looking forward to using Target Display Mode when I pick up my new 27" iMac this month (just holding out for Lion). My work computer is a 15" MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt, and while the display is good for a portable, I'd love access to a 27" display! Some of the applications I work with won't be installed on the iMac, since that will be a personal desktop and not a work machine. This is a good solution for others in my situation.Reply

WD RED 4TB drives are pretty affordable now, for the price of the 8Tb R4, I can get a diskless R4 and 4 red drives, resulting in 16tb total. They question is, would the RED drives match the performance of the R4? They are 5400 rpm drives, though quite reliable (much better than a green drive).Reply